Landmark modernist house in Berkeley sells for first time

Donald Olsen’s glass house in North Berkeley sold this week for the first time since it was built in 1954. Photo: Berkeley Hills Realty/EBRD

BERKELEYSIDE: A landmarked glass house built in 1952 changed hands this week for the first time.

The Kip House, at 775 San Diego Road, was designed by architect Donald Olsen and is located across from John Hinkel Park. It sold for just over $1 million.

Olsen was a professor at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. His home, which is next door to the Kip House and of a similar design, was landmarked by the city in 2009. A native of Minnesota, Olsen studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard before setting up his architecture practice in Berkeley in 1953.